3d Printed Roller Skate Wheels
Is it possible to 3d print roller skate wheels?
I love designing roller skate wheels. I always draw a lot of inspiration for my wheel designs from the car culture. Each year, I love seeing all the new car concepts at SEMA and also the new car concepts at the various motor shows around the world. At one of these car shows, I saw a 3d printed car wheel that looked insane and I thought it would be a cool project to try to create a 3d printed roller skate wheel.
![Bont 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-drawing.jpg?v=1611977266)
3D printed roller skate wheel concept
I started with our Royal Assassin wheel design and then modified the spokes. I wanted a design that could not come out of a mold, a roller skate wheel that could only be made by 3d printing. The concept looked like this below.
![Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-3wheels](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-3wheels.jpg?v=1611977266)
Various colors of the 3d printed roller skate wheel
One of the first issues that were flagged by the 3d printer was the spoke thickness was a little on the thin side. Making it any thicker would ruin the design so I ran some stress tested and decided that it was thick enough for a sample and proceeded to the next step which is choosing a material. When 3d printing, there are a lot of material choices and the price for this part could range from $40 per hub to $1000 per hub using exotic metals. I settled on a plastic called Polyamide 12 which allows us to use various colors with a decent finish on the surface of the material. The first prototype hub arrived and it looked like this below.
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-1.png?v=1611977271)
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-2.png?v=1611977271)
1st prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel
I think it looks amazing. I am really happy with how it looks. The black color is probably not the best as it doesn’t reflect the light in a way that you can see the intricacy of the design so for the production run I will use some brighter colors. I ordered the production hubs to create a skateable set of roller skate wheels. They have arrived and they look like this below.
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-3_medium.png?v=1611977272)
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-4_medium.png?v=1594772792)
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-5_medium.png?v=1611977272)
![prototype 3d printed roller skate wheel](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0048/6242/files/Bont-3d-printed-roller-skate-wheel-6_medium.png?v=1611977272)
Blue and Red 3d printed roller skate wheels
I have shipped the hubs to Scott Corey who will pour the urethane for me. I will update you on the results here when we get them back.
About the author:
Alexander Bont has been skating since the age of two years old. He was part of the Australian national short track team for 7 years. He has also competed on quad roller skates, long track ice skates, and inline speed skates. Alexander has won a number of Australian national titles including national records in short track and state titles in inline speed skating. He is the owner and CEO of Bont Skates and has a passion for skate design.